Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/59

 MY RIVAL

to concert, party, ball—

What profit is in these?

I sit alone against the wall

And strive to look at ease.

The incense that is mine by right

They burn before Her shrine;

And that's because I'm seventeen

And She is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,

My colour comes and goes;

I redden to my finger-tips,

And sometimes to my nose.

But She is white where white should be

And red where red should shine.

The blush that flies at seventeen

Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had Her constant cheek:

I wish that I could sing 45